The Return
by Galeros
Summary: New maverick forces are conspiring against all goodly Humans and Reploids of the world. X, Zero, and Axl now must fight them, but, they may find help from an unexpected source. This is a story of the return of those who have fallen.
1. Invulnerable enemies?

The Return

It was a normal day at headquarters for X, Zero, and Axl. It had been surprisingly peaceful the last few months. So all of them were enjoying a well deserved rest in a lounge located inside headquarters. Axl and Zero were playing some fighting game and X was reclining on the couch staring up at the ceiling and being bored.

"Hah Zero, you may be able to beat me in real life, but you will never defeat me in Super Duper Power Fighters ten," Axl exclaimed with much glee in his voice.

"Awww, this stupid controller is broken I say" Zero said exasperated.

"Say whatever you want, but the fact is, I still won." Axl said with a grin still plastered on his face.

"Will you two shut up! I am trying to relax here!" Yelled X at the ones who were making too much noise pollution.

"Heh, sorry we did not mean to upset his royal highness" Zero said with his head down, his hair going over his helmet and covering his head.

At this moment Alia chose to come in for her off time. When she opened the door she saw that Axl was turning off a video game system and starting to watch TV, and Zero was with his head bowed and his hair covering his helmet in front of a very irate looking X who was sitting on the couch.

"Hmmm, well, it seems like it is normal day!" She exclaimed, being much bubblier than she had intended and attracting the attention of everyone in the room.

"Hello Alia" all three of them said in unison.

"Umm, so how are you X?" Alia queried

"Well, if these two goofs would let me relax I think I would be fine" X said with a grin on his face.

"Why are you all still wearing your armor? You know you can take it off now that you are off duty" Alia said with quite a bit of curiosity in her voice.

"Well, we all know it has been really peaceful these last few months, so we all figured that mavericks might strike at any moment. So we all agreed to keep on out armor at all times so that we will always be ready to go the scene immediately" Axl rattled out.

"Uh-huh, well, I just came here to relax too. I have been doing so much tedious work that I think my positronic brain has been fried." Said Alia while closing her eyes and putting her hand to her forehead.

"No problem Alia, you can relax here with us. In fact, I think X would like it if you sat on his la…" Zero was then cut off as X put his hand over Zero's mouth.

"What did he say?" Alia questioned?

"It was nothing, nothing at all" X said with a blush on his face.

"Umm, actually I think I will go to the cafeteria instead" Alia said while slowly backing out of the room.

"Ohh, I am am going to go too!" Axl said with a bit too much happiness in his voice for Alias liking.

Just as Alia and Axl were about to depart the alarms began to blare and Signa's voice could be heard through the intercoms in the room.

"X, Zero Axl, and Alia are to report to my office now. Mavericks are terrorizing people in several different cities throughout the world." Signas said in a calm manner.

X sighed" It looks like the peace has just ended, well lets get going. Hopefully we can end this one quick."

Zero grinned" All right! Finally a chance for me to kick some maverick a…" Zero was cut off by Axl, in his rush to get to Signas's office as soon as possible, accidentally knocked down Zero.

"Calm down Axl, I will let you have a couple if you don't knock me down again." Said Zero with a tone of mock superiority in his voice.

"Lets go, we can not let the mavericks harm any more people that they probably already have" Said X with a hint of anger in his voice.

With that they all ran towards Signa's office, once they got there they asked Signas where they were expected to go.

"The mavericks are attacking two cities in the United States, three in Europe, and one in Japan. Zero and Axl will handle the two in the United States, a separate force will handle the ones in Europe, and X will handle the one in Japan, If anyone has any objections tell me now."

There were no objections.

"Good, then you are all to head to your designated locations."

"Alia, I assume you already know what to do?" Signas said with his usual calm voice.

"Yes sir, I do."

"Good, then go."

"Yes sir"

With that Alia left to go to her station.

When Axl arrived at his location he found countless bodies, mostly Human scattered all over the place. He could smell the charred flesh and felt like he was going to be sick. He held his gun up and looked around, trying to assess where the murderers were.

He did not have to wait long to found out where they were. For a Humanoid maverick wearing a red cape soon landed right in front of him.

Axl never even saw him coming.

Axl found himself grabbed by the maverick and soon he was face to face with him. His face had no eyes, nose, or even a mouth. There was just thick interconnecting chrome metal strips that connected to another larger one in the middle of his face.

"Arggh let me go!" Axl struggled with his captor, but no matter how hard he tried he could not budge. Nor could he even pull the trigger from his gun for his hand was in such an awkward position that he could not properly pull the trigger.

The maverick, not even saying a word threw him up in the air and jumped up to meet him. He then kicked Axl's hapless body into a nearby building, and then transformed his arm into a buster and shot at where Axl had landed. Most of the building caved in on top of where Axl had landed. The figure waited a bit, and once he was sure his job was done, he teleported out of the area.

Authors Notes: Well here is the disclaimer since I for got to put it at the top of the fic. I do not own X, Axl, Zero, Alia or Signas. Or anyone else that has appeared in Capcom's Mega Man X series of games. I am making no profit from this story either.

The Return: Chapter 2

In Maverick Hunter HQ, Alia was having a hard time getting her computer to work correctly. Thus she had no idea what had happened to Axl.

"What is wrong with this thing? All it ever shows is that stupid blue screen. It is a sad day indeed when a Reploid can not figure out how to work a computer." Alia groaned to herself.

Alia soon decided to call in Douglas to see if he could figure out what was wrong with it. As Douglas bumbled into Alias computer room to see what he could do, another Reploid was having troubles of his own.

Zero arrived at his location, a coastal city in the United States, and quickly assessed his surroundings. He saw many trashed vehicles; and saw the bodies of many dead Humans and Reploids. Zero growled to himself, while not many knew it by the way he acted. He did indeed care very deeply for both Reploids and Humans. Everybody at HQ just thought he was in it for the fighting, but they were very wrong. His anger soon began to manifest itself as he quickly took out his Z-Saber and swung it around a bit, cutting a signpost in half.

After he had calmed down a bit, he tried to contact Alia to see what she had to say about were he was, and where in the hell was that damned maverick. Much to his surprise, he found he could not contact her.

"Damnit! Now what am I supposed to do?"

He began carefully looking around, and in the buildings in the city. All the while being careful not to step on any of the bodies he saw.

Zero did not even see it until it hit him right in the face.

"Ahhhh, what the hell was that?" Zero said holding his free hand to his head.

He was certain that he had just been hit by something very hard, and he wanted to know what it was. As being it with hard things in the head is not conductive to ones good health.

Another one of them came after him, but this time Zero sensed it and sidestepped to the right out of the way at the last second. He saw the object appeared to be a yellow ball with a read "M" engraved into it. Then he saw a bunch of them fly out of the sky and come together, forming a Humanoid body. The body's appendages seemed to dance about crazily. The being towered over Zero and its face was just a giant glowing red "M."

Zero readied his saber. Waiting to see what his opponent would do next.

The being dispersed once again and many of the balls flew at Zero, he tried to dodge them, but even if he dodged one, he was hit by another.

Soon Zero was lying on the ground, coolant fluid coming out of various parts of his body. His armor was shattered, and circuits were showing through breaks in his skin. The being formed into its Humanoid form once again, picking up Zero and then carrying him a short distance to a dock. It used its great strength and tossed him far into the ocean.

Authors Note's: Sorry this chapter was so short, I just felt sort of bad for not putting something up for a week. If it sucks and you know why, please tell me.

The Return Chapter 3

X arrived at his location and looked about and readied his buster. He saw Human and Reploid bodies everywhere, and he had to quell his anger, lest he not be able to fight in control of all his faculties. He attempted to contact Alia to see if he could find out where the maverick was, but all he got was static.

"_Hmmm, well I hope nothing bad has happened to her. Well, she is a tough reploid, so she should be alright, but hopefully it is just computer troubles."_

Without Alia's help X would have to find the reploid on his own. Luckily he has had many years of experience, but all those years of hard work and dedication would soon mean next to nothing.

X only dodged his attacker by a hairsbreadth and just on sheer instinct.

He heard the soft humming sound of an energy saber flying over his head a he ducked down to avoid it. He quickly up righted himself and looked in the direction of where the saber had slashed at him and he saw his assailant. The maverick was a humanoid one and he wore a blue cape that billowed in the wind behind him. His face was almost a parody of a human skull, with exaggerated teeth and forehead. He had fangs that extended up to where a nose would have been, and his entire face was drenched in speckles of now drying blood, most likely the blood of his victims. His body was also skeletal in nature and X could clearly se his inner working encased in a black substance of sorts. It most resembled glass, but he knew it was not glass, for no maverick would be built with such a fragile substance.

"Sooo, X, you have come to try and kill me have you? Well, it is no matter, for I shall kill you as I killed the rest, and I will make sure you suffer." The maverick said, its voice was scratchy and yet had a hint of arrogance to it.

"What makes you think you can?" X said charging his buster.

"Ahh, ah, that is not allowed." The maverick then jumped in the air, and vanished.

"_Damn, where did he go now?" thought X._

X quickly circled around where he was, his buster was fully charged now and he was ready to let lose as soon as he spotted the maverick again.

Luckily for X, his instincts saved him once again.

He heard the soft humming sound and before his main systems even knew it, he dodged out of the way of the saber once again. He turned around again and saw the skeletal reploid in front of him. He then released his charged shot and hit the maverick in the chest, sending him flying back into a wall of a building.

"Well, they don't call you the top maverick hunter for nothing." The skeletal reploid said, still with the arrogant tone.

"If you stop now and come with me there is a chance you may be able to still live." X said, as much as he now hated this maverick he had to still give him a chance.

"Bah, no chance X" maverick said quickly recovering from the hit. He did not appear to have taken too much damage from X's hit.

"Very well then, I will have to retire you now." X said, with a hint of regret in his voice.

The maverick once again charged at X with his saber and X moved out of the way and fired shots from his buster at the maverick, some connecting, but they did not appear to damage the skeletal form much. The maverick soon changed direction and ran towards X, but X once again dodged his attack with his saber and fired more shots from his buster. Now it looked like he was getting somewhere as the maverick now slowed down, apparently hurt some.

Suddenly the maverick sped up and slashed at X, X easily dodged the attack, but he soon felt a sharp pain in his chest, and he found another saber going through it. He looked down and saw that the maverick could form its arm into a saber if it so wished to do so. The maverick removed the saber and X faltered, the maverick had hit something vital in his systems, but in his haze of pain he could not access his systems to figure out what he had hit.

Much to X's and the maverick's shock another figure teleported right behind the maverick and took out an energy saber, except this one was in the shape of a falchion, a curved blade that somewhat resembled a scimitar, but was much larger. The stranger himself wore mostly black clothes with a hood drawn over his head. He appeared to have no armor on. He deftly slashed at the maverick.

The maverick adeptly dodged the newcomer's attack and left X to fall to the ground, very injured.

The maverick turned to face the newcomer and spoke with an air of disgust about him," Who are you to interrupt my killing of X?"

"Just call me a friend." The stranger said with much humor in his voice.

"You shall die for even being in my presence!"

"Hmmm, isn't that an interesting line. How cliché, can't you mavericks think of anything better to say." The stranger said nonchalantly

"Argh, THAT'S IT, YOU DIE NOW!"

Unfortunately for it, the maverick had not noticed that X had gotten up on his knees and charged up a buster shot. The stranger grinned and moved out of the line of fire, for a second a look of confusion came over the maverick's face before he was nailed point blank range in the back with a buster shot. He fell over, many of the circuits on his back now showing.

"Damn you X, I will kill you next time" the maverick rasped, and then teleported away.

"Damn" X said weakly, "He got away."

"X, don't strain yourself, lets get you back to Maverick Hunter HQ where you can heal up." The stranger said.

"Who are you?" X queried

"Just call me a friend" The stranger said with a grin on his face.

"Alright friend, lets get back to Maverick Hunter HQ." X said with a weak smile on his face.

Author's Notes: Well, I am sure you might have figured out that from now on I will use italics to denote thoughts. I am sorry if it sucked, but I am not very good at writing. Sorry about the delay too, I have just been busy lately.


	2. New Allies?

The Return Chapter 4

X and the man teleported back to Maverick Hunter HQ and were welcomed by Alia and Signas.

"X, it is good to see you are in relatively good shape, well compared to Zero and Axl that is." Signas said grimly.

"Huh? What happened to them?" X said with a worried look on his face.

"They were both beat up pretty bad, but they were brought back here by a strange Reploid, he left before we could question him." Alia said.

"Speaking of strangers, who is that with you X?" asked Signas.

"You can just call me Serid Sir, I am a member of the B.R.C. and I am afraid I must be going now."

With that said Serid teleported out of Maverick Hunter HQ.

"Yeesh didn't stay around very long did he." Alia said a bit exasperated.

"I don't think he is an enemy, at least I am pretty sure he is not our enemy, seeing as how he did distract the maverick I was fighting long enough for me to charge up my buster."

"What is the B.R.C.?" Alia asked.

"Well, first off, B.R.C. stands for the Biology and Robotics Company. They are located in the American Midwest. As you can guess by the name they specialize in Biology and Robotics. They are actually a fairly small organization, but from what my sources tell me they have teams of highly trained Geneticists and Robotocists at their disposal. I am just wondering why one of their agents would be all the way over here at our HQ." Signas said.

"We can deal with them later; right now I just want to see Zero and Axl." X said.

"Yes, I think they need you right now X, you may go and see them." Signas said in his usually commanding tone.

As X and Alia were walking to see Zero and Axl, Alia decided to start a bit of a conversation with X.

"So, X what happened out there? I mean Zero and Axl are in really bad shape; Zero probably would have died had that strange Reploid not brought him back. We better take a look at you as well; you look like you need to rest a lot too."

"Are they both in that bad a condition? Man, those mavericks are more powerful than any of the ones I have fought before. I wonder who is behind these attacks; they can't all be completely separate incidents. Oh, and what about the reploid that brought them back? What did he look like, and did you at least get his name?"

"Well, I can tell you what he looked like. He was wearing gray and red body armor. His helmet was red and a visor covered his eyes, but his most noticeable feature was his huge yellow scarf around his neck."

"Hmm, well at least he brought back Zero and Axl before their condition worsened. I hope I can meet him someday so I can thank him."

The hallway they were walking in then lapsed into a silence until they reached where Zero and Axl were being treated. X walked up to Zero first and cringed when he saw his longtime friend in such bad shape. His armor had been taken off, it could be seen in a pile in a corner of the room, he was just wearing some hospital type clothes. Exposed circuitry could be seen on most parts of Zero's body; even part of his synthetic flesh on his face had been ripped off, revealing the mechanical working beneath.

"Hey buddy, you think you will be able to pull through?" X asked softly.

A weak grin came on Zero's face and he said "Yeah, I think I will be okay, I just need to get all this stuff back where it should be and I should be alright."

X and Alia then walked over to Axl, he was not in as bad shape, as Zero, but he was still pretty banged up. His armor had also been taken off and put out of the way. Both his arms were broken and he too had some exposed circuitry and his legs and broken arms.

"Well, X, it looks like I wasn't as good as I thought I was. Man, that maverick was so fast; I was down and out before I even knew what hit me. I think I will be alright though."

"Heh, that is good to hear Axl, well I better get myself checked out." X said.

X then went about the prcess of finding someone to tend to his wounds, he found them soon enough in another area of the HQ's hospital.

"Hey, Livesaver, can you help me out a bit. I am not as beat up as Zero or Axl, but I still need some patching up."

"Certainly X, I shall have you fixed up in no time."

After X had been healed he went to his room to rest. He took off his armor and put on some casual sleep clothes and then he removed the books that lie on his bed and lie down and slowly fell asleep.

When he awoke, his internal clock systems told him it was about 9:00 in the morning, not too late, but not exactly early either. He decided he would go and get something to eat. On his way to the cafeteria he came across Alia, who was wearing a slightly oversize gray T-Shirt that said in navy blue text "Kiss me, I'm a Reploid." And shorts that showed off her shapely legs. Her hair was down, and not in its usually bun fashion. She smiled and then stretched, her hands on both sides of her heard and her arms going backward, and chest going forward, showing even more a prominent part of her anatomy, needless to say, X started blushing.

"Hey, are you alright X? Your main processing unit isn't overheating is it?" She said as she saw the redness that was now on X's face.

"No, I am fine, just a bit warm, that is all." X said as he tugged at his shirt collar.

"Yeah, it is a bit warm in here."

"Anyways, I am really curious as to whom that Reploid that saved Zero and Axl is. I have never seen anybody who matches his description around the base."

"Neither have I, but I guess it doesn't really matter right now. I think we should just focus on the task at hand."

"And that is getting food?" X said with a grin.

"Yep, can't work on an empty stomach, even though we really don't have a stomach like Humans do."

As X and Alia were about to eat breakfast, in an the outskirts of an American Midwestern town called Raccoon City, underneath a mansion lay the main labs of B.R.C.. Serid had arrived back some hours ago and he was walking around in the Robotics area of the lab. There he saw a figure wearing a yellow scarf looking up at a stasis tube with a medium-sized blue reploid in it.


End file.
